AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Until the Dauphine was eliminated…
Our days were numbered.
Her fingers curled in the short hairs at my nape, urging me closer. Tipping her head back, baring her naked throat for me in silent invitation to feed deep and well and long. Before the battle came for us all.
I bared my fangs and started to sink them into her throat.
Gold flashed up out of her flesh, a protective, impregnable shield. One I recognized all too well.
I flung myself backward, sliding out of the bed. Chest heaving, knives in both hands before I even realized I was on my feet.
Startled, she sat up, or tried to. Her hair was tangled beneath Daire’s weight, and the warcat didn’t budge, even though I panted like a freight train. Wary, Rik narrowed a hard look on me, ready to pull her to safety.
Away from me.
The door opened behind me, Itztli with his obsidian blade glittering in his hand. Vivian, her short swords burning with sunfire flames. The general charged for the stairs. Not that any of them had a hope of stopping me if harming our queen was ever my goal.
“G? What’s wrong? Guillaume. Answer me.”
Her bond hummed with intensity, compelling the words out of me. “That fucking choker. Where did you get it?”
“What choker?” Rik asked.
He couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see it now that I wasn’t trying to sink fangs into her.
Her fingers reached up to her throat, and as soon as she touched the choker, it gleamed against her skin. A high, tall collar as wide as my palm, golden armor around her throat. “My mother gave it to me.”
Esetta. Of fucking course. “The rest, too?”
“Some bracelets and a belt. Why?”
Cold sweat dripped down my back. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
I raised my right hand, saluting with the knife, and the Bloods’ attention sharpened to full alert. Rik surged up over her like a mountain. Itztli and Vivian both leaped at my back, blades flashing. I didn’t have to turn around to feel the glide of red-hot steel as I stepped aside, twisted, catching Vivian’s sword with the shorter blade in my left hand and shoving her aside. Ducked beneath the slashing obsidian meant to flay me open like a fish. My knife easily slipped beneath the rock troll’s granite even as his fist wrapped around my throat.
A ringing tap echoed in the room. The tip of my blade against the golden belt wrapped around Shara’s waist.
Midnight eyes spiraled with galaxies inches away. Her hand buried in my chest, her nails in my heart.
“As you can see.” I coughed around the pressure of the alpha’s grip. Blood dripped from my mouth. “Our queen is well protected. Even from me.”
“G,” she breathed out shakily.
Though she didn’t pull her nails out now that she had a taste of me.
“Next time, may I recommend you yank the heart out completely, my queen. Though that wouldn’t stop me, either.”
The general bounded into the room with a roar that rattled the windows. “What the actual fuck?”
Rik eased his grip on my throat but didn’t fully release me. “Someone check on Daire.” At Sekh’s low hiss, Rik added, “Not you.”
Scowling fiercely at me, Vivian stepped closer to the bed by a Daire-sized lump. She reached under a pile of Shara’s hair and gave him a shake. “He’s breathing. I think he’s asleep, but he’s not waking up.”
:He’s spelled by your hair,: Lew said in our bonds. :The magic wraps around us like a heavy, silent blanket that cuts us off from everything except you. It’s how your mother gave each of us secret instructions without any other Blood hearing or knowing the details. Reach for his bond and pull him up out of the spell, or he’ll dream as long as your hair is touching him.:
“My hair?” Shara asked. Then realized how long it’d grown seemingly overnight. “Holy fuck. She really did save it for me.”
Easing her fingers out of my flesh, though she kept her nails deep enough to feed, she closed her eyes. The long tendrils of hair parted like the Red Sea, sweeping away from the warcat curled on her legs.
